Bulletproof
by Silenced Cry
Summary: [She smiles like a heartbreaker and shoots to kill] Leon meets an interesting vandal at the shooting range. LarxeneLeon


Disclaimer: I don't own KH2 or it's characters.

Author's Note: This little idea has been swimming in my thoughts and I just had to write it for my own sake. If you cringe at the pairing, then don't read, but I can guarantee that it's quite an interesting concept ;) Besides that, it's the first one of its kind in existence, so I hope you enjoy. Criticism is welcome, but pointless flames are not.

Side note: This is a modern fic, written in present-day without the existence of Nobodies and Heartless, so it is an **AU**. I don't know why, but I always imagined the setting to be in Toronto.

Summary: _She smiles like a heartbreaker and shoots to kill._ Leon meets an interesting vandal at the shooting range. (Larxene/Leon)

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**Bulletproof**

The only reason he noticed her was because the shooting range was barren except for himself, and the sound of her voice yelling, "Why don't you drop _dead_" into her cell phone, slightly jarred him. He reloaded his semiautomatic and pretended not to notice her prowling towards the empty aisle beside him, retrieving a vintage revolver from beneath her fitted biker jacket. He fired a shot at the target and tried to ignore her muffled curses that he could only guess was directed to the person who she had just cut off.

"That bastard..." she muttered, riffling through a pocket.

Leon sighed under his breath and pulled the trigger, missing the paper bull's-eye. He flicked his gaze to the woman beside him, weariness evident, and muttered richly.

"Did you say something?"

He looked at her over his shoulder and observed the frayed leather cuff and netted glove that brushed aside the blond hair falling over one eye. She rested her weight on one hip and shoved a fist into her pocket, dangling the gun to rest against the side of her thigh with a loose grasp.

"I said the shooting range is closed."

Leon turned back to the bull's-eye and aligned his pistol, focusing on his movements. The woman's smoky eyes assessed him.

"Then what are _you_ still doing here?"

He fired and missed. With a sigh, he removed the earpiece and let the band loop comfortably around his neck. Turning to her, he clenched his teeth suddenly feeling the need to be defensive, "I _work_ here."

She smiled suddenly and released the fist from its confinement, locking that hand onto the pistol and turned towards her paper target. The woman closed one eye and leveled her aim, and flitted her gaze to him over her shoulder. "Then you won't mind if I shoot a couple of rounds. Anyone smart wouldn't leave me unsupervised with any object that could vaguely be used as a weapon, let alone a gun."

The man was somewhat amused by this woman who smelt of smoke and perfume, and spoke with a purr rattling in her throat, but he only licked his lips, considering her while maintaining his look of indifference. He crossed his arms and leant back against the metal support behind him. "Why's that?"

She only smiled tightly and fired, bullet tearing paper right through the middle. "I don't get along well with others", she said.

Leon didn't allow himself to scoff exactly, but a grunt managed to escape. He couldn't take her too seriously otherwise she would dominate the situation, he was sure of it.

"Don't believe me?" she asked coyly, turning sideways to glare at him with one blue eye, the other obscured with one long golden strand. He noticed the vague outline of a purplish bruise at the side of her neck where someone else's teeth marks had been printed into her skin. She smiled at him slowly, realizing that he had discovered the little secret that her collar had failed to keep hidden, and winked slyly.

He ignored her and settled his serious gaze into hers, "I can't let you stay. It's against policy."

The woman laughed a little to herself as she spoke, "Who's gonna know? It's just you and me in here."

Leon narrowed his eyes, "My boss could be around the corner filling out papers at Registration, and I'm pretty sure the surveillance system will blow your cover."

She fired a couple of shots, obviously unconcerned at his mild threats. 'Any other girl' she thought, 'and those lines would've worked.'

The strange woman (who seemed more like a brazen girl to him now) curled her lip in a half-smirk. "You and I both know that this run-down place doesn't have a security system. And that old geezer is probably wetting his beak at the tavern two blocks down, slurring pretty words to dumb girls half his age."

He almost cringed at the description of Cid and swallowed at her dead-on guess. "How did you get in here?"

She shrugged nonchalantly and smiled secretively. "Opened the door."

Leon frowned instantly, "The door was locked."

"Not anymore..." Her teeth bit into her bottom lip to keep from laughing when he paled slightly, the realization hit him like a sudden slap as he ran toward the entrance hidden behind a wall.

The shattered glass crunched underneath his boots as he surveyed the damage with disbelief written on his face. He didn't know how the sound of breaking glass eluded him, but it could easily be disregarded as the echoing sound of gunshots often dominated the atmosphere.

"You're going to have to pay for the damage", he tried to keep his voice even as he collected a large shard from the floor, then dropped it back down again. Cid was going to kill him.

Her voice followed after a few clicks of the ancient barrel rotating and two definitive shots echoed loudly. "Sure, sure" she replied, her voice non-committal and distant.

"I mean it," he appeared from behind the wall and pointed a threatening finger at her as if he was reprimanding a small child.

She laughed at his stern expression and twirled the pistol twice, thumb clicking on the trigger, "Whatever gets you to sleep at night." Pointing the hollow barrel at him, she flicked her wrist, motioning as she spoke, "Now be a dear and get me another target. This one's riddled with too many holes."

He raked a hand through his hair, collecting himself, "What's your name?"

"Jane."

Leon searched around with arms swishing at his sides and produced a napkin and a pen, "Last name?"

"Doe."

He was about to curse when she turned around and winked at him, snickering lightly. "Arlene," she answered truthfully. The name lingered in his mind unwillingly as he scribbled inelegantly. "Phone number?" he asked, keeping his eyes to the brown napkin, eyebrows drawn into a frown.

"Hasty aren't we? You're going to have to earn that, I'm not telling."

Picking up his own handgun where he left it on the floor near his station, he sighed raggedly, "Just give me your number and Cid will work something out for you to pay off the damage. The police aren't going to want to play games with you."

She smiled, not worried at all, "No dice. How about _you _play a game with _me_?"

Arlene didn't wait for him to respond as she searched the cartridge, pulling the trigger, watching the empty chambers click into view. She searched in her pocket for something and leaned her head to one side, motioning to the left. "Bring that over there."

Leon looked over to the targets propped up against the wall and frowned at her. "Go on," she urged, then smiled, placating, "Don't worry, you'll like this game. Well...I know _I_ will."

Inside, he was fuming, but nothing would get done if he couldn't get her to cooperate...and to get her to do that, he had to let her have reign. He picked up the thin cardboard target, but she stretched out her hand in his direction, wiggling two fingers in the air, so he picked up another one. He could almost admit to being agitated as he threw her a hurried glance when he passed by, immediately traveling the long stretch to where their old targets were placed.

"The game's called 'Devil's Three'. I just made it up." She smiled bitterly, "The alternative name is: 'My Boyfriend is a Bastard'."

Leon recalled the conversation on her cell phone earlier and was intelligent enough not to comment. He paused where he was and propped the targets up with one hand resting on both. "Continue," she prodded. He turned his back to her, overly aware of the fact that he was within her range and it was impossible to dodge a bullet. He took apart the previous bull's-eye targets and hoisted the new ones up, freezing when he heard the click of a trigger. She cackled behind him, "Scared of me?"

He hated himself for freezing at the sound and tensing his muscles. Just to be safe, he whipped around and looked at the pistol in her hand -though he had convinced himself that he only did it to give her a Hellish glare. She tipped it to one side revealing the barrel and smirked, "Empty, see. No ammo."

Arlene watched as he sauntered over to her side, chest tightened and hackles raised. From what she could gather, he didn't like her so much, but she didn't really care.

"You only have three shots," she explained, pulling out three bullets and loading them into their chambers. She turned to him and smiled viciously, then turned back to the white board with the shadow of an ambiguous figure of a man. "Shoot to kill," she said.

'I guess this game is more for her than anyone else' he mused with a wry grin that he showed to her back. Three shots rang in the silence.

"You must have loved him" Leon smirked into his words as he saw the target, adorning a hole in the head, and with surprising accuracy, a rupture where the heart would have been. He frowned slightly, "You missed the last one."

They both looked to the wall where a bullet was embedded, but she only eased into a satisfied smile. "That, my dear, is where the crotch would be."

Leon coughed lightly, deeply unsettled but at the same time, entertained by this strange vandal.

"Your turn", she said cheerily.

He readied himself into a proper stance and eyed her unsurely. He noticed that she was busy drifting around aimlessly, taking in the high ceiling and concrete floors. The look in her eyes suggested a time when she could have been a pickpocket, scoping the streets for an easy target. She looked like she was the kind of girl that could take a punch.

Through the corner of his eye, he spied the torn jeans, laced boots and white tank-top, in fragments. The first two shots he made were unsteady. His focus was on her, not completely trusting this strange woman who emanated innocence with the blond hair that always fell into her eyes and the fingers, always plying and tangling into the fraying threads of her jacket. She could probably kill a man and get away with it. He turned his attention back to the stationary target and edged into a deep frown

The last shot didn't even make it onto the target because the vixen was already pressed to him -chest to back, mouth near the back of his neck, "You really suck."

She shifted away from him, heels muffled by jeans scuffing against concrete. Her cell phone rang, a heavy-metal rock song (that Leon would never admit to listening to) as the ringtone. She didn't answer it, just tucked her revolver away and smiled shyly at him between a waterfall of gold.

"Well, it's been nice, stranger."

Arlene looked to the small, out-of-place window to her right, a thought stirring, and then turned to him with an intriguing look to her eyes. She lingers near the window, appraising with two hands tucked into her jacket pockets, shoulders hunched.

Leon almost doesn't want to ask, but he gives in, "What are you doing?"

He can't catch her smile, only the words "Looking for the exit" as she kicks the window out of its place, sending it shattering onto the vacant sidewalk outside. She laughs like a panther with blood-soaked fangs.

"Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim", she says matter-of-factly, bending through the fractured glass. His hand darted out, caught her wrist and pulled her to the hollowed out window. She staggered a little and smiled like a heartbreaker, "You're sweet. But I can't stay."

Once more he was blind-sided as she played the devil, pulling him forwards through the blemish of a black night, and kissed the corner of his lip, canines rasping across his mouth. The touch diminished into a heated sting with a pleasant musk of ashes and vanilla retreating into the cold night air. They didn't exchange pleasantries, didn't bother to linger in touch and taste, just glared at each other with lowered lashes.

The crunch of glass could be heard when he stepped back and she meandered through the parking lot, turning her back to him with a wolfish grin.

Leon pressed himself to the ledge, finding his voice and the puzzle pieces of thick glass underneath his heel, "You're going to pay for that damage!"

She wandered under a streetlight, turning to him while walking backwards with teasing steps. The vandal giggled to herself then winked. "I already did", she said, blowing him a kiss then disappeared into the inky streets.

Leon groaned and dragged the heel of his palm over his face, kicking the shards that littered the floor. Damnit, Cid was going to _kill_ him.

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Arlene/Larxene quotes** Bertrand Russell: **"Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim."

If you couldn't guess who Arlene's 'Bastard Boyfriend' was, it was none other than Alex/Axel.

_**Care to review?**_

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